THE INDIAN NO PROBLEM. 5 



cated with his own race. I have known scores of like cases. 



SAVAGERY IS ONLY A HABIT. 



America stands preeminent for the unity of races and the 

 personal freedom of the individual, and it has established 

 beyond peradventure that the real problems are methods and 

 systems, and not man himself. 



The assimilating and utilizing of all people within its jur- 

 isdiction is both the prerogative and duty of the nation, 

 because national preservation requires it. To leave or to 

 build any race or class as special or alien to the general wel- 

 fare, hinders growth, multiplies expense and fosters anxiety 

 and violence. 



The duty resting upon me in the opportunity offered by 

 your invitation, is to help you see as plainly as I do, that 

 when treated like other folks, there really is no problem in 

 the Indian himself, and that the difficulties we contend with 

 in our efforts to unify and utilize him as a man and a citizen 

 are of our own creation. Long experience with Indians con- 

 firms my text. The Indian is rather raw material in the 

 forest, mountain and plain to be brought into and put through 

 the proper refining influences of our civilization mills of 

 to-day, wrought into shape and then sent to work on the 

 great oceans of our industry and thrift. 



History, our own experience and common sense, ought to 

 have shown us decades ago that if we reall}^ wanted to civi- 

 lize the Indians, we were pursuing a course designed to 

 exactly frustrate our wishes. 



Our success in Americanizing, if not entirely assimilating, 

 black savages forty times more numerous now in America 

 than our Indians, and our success in reaching happy results 

 on the same line with foreigners from almost ever>' land, and 

 our failure after centuries to accomplish any material like 

 results with the Indians ought to have led us to hunt the 

 reason and adopt different methods long ago. Bringing 

 Negroes from man}' tribes in Africa here and scattering them. 



